Blanche Briefly Recoils While Defending Trump

NEW YORK — Lead Trump defense attorney Todd Blanche admitted for just a moment on Thursday that his client was his own worst enemy.

During a contempt hearing on an additional four alleged gag order violations, Judge Juan Merchan told Blanche that it was Trump who chose to emerge in the courtroom hallway last week and assail Michael Cohen, who is a witness in the case.

“Nobody forced your client to go do that,” Merchan said.

Blanche replied: “Your honor, I agree with that.”

Trump looked over in surprise at Blanche, before shaking his head. In the courthouse’s overflow room, where your reporter is seated, journalists and members of the public erupted in laughter.

Blanche spent much of the 40-minute hearing channeling what were visibly the wishes of his client while trying to manage his relationship with Merchan. The judge had warned the Trump attorney last week that he was on the verge of “losing all credibility with the court.”

It’s a hard line to walk for Blanche, who appears visibly squeezed between his duty as an attorney to obey the orders of the judge and his representation of Trump. In the lead-up to the above exchange, Blanche complained that “everybody can say whatever they want except for Mr. Trump” under the gag order’s terms, pointing, specifically, to statements by Cohen mocking Trump, and statements by President Biden alluding to the trial.

Merchan replied by telling Blanche something that he surely found relatable: “I don’t have authority over most of the people that are saying things.”